BOSTON – Joe Torre is the gold standard, of that there can be little debate. The Yankees manager long ago cemented his place in the pantheon of New York’s coaches and managers, solidifying a spot for himself in Cooperstown along the way. He is what everyone else wants to be: successful, popular, respected, beloved. With four rings to show for his trouble.

Byron Scott has a long way to go to make up the difference between himself and his corporate counterpart within the middle management of YankeeNets LLC. But the longer Scott stays on the job, and the more we see of the work he’s done with the Nets, the more clear it becomes that he is beginning to solidify his own status within the city’s sporting hemisphere.

No. 2, with a bullet (see chart above).

“I look at what all successful people do, I study the things that make them successful,” Scott said a few weeks ago, when the conversation turned to sports, success, and sustaining that success. “I played for Pat Riley, and I don’t think anyone can argue with his resume. I played for Larry Brown. I work in the same region as Joe Torre. I think a lot of what makes you successful in this business is what you have inside you. But a lot has to do with the people who influence you, too.”

The Nets were given the day off yesterday by Scott, which is becoming something of a rite of spring following Game 3s in Boston. Only this time, the mood around the team was far different than it was last year. This time, it was a reward for thrashing the Celtics, 94-76. Nothing terribly revolutionary about that.

Last year, however, Scott gave the Nets off despite the fact – actually, because of the fact – they’d blown a 21-point, fourth-quarter lead. While amateur coaches across the country wailed at the idea that Scott was responding to such a meltdown with a free day to take in the sights of Boston, it proved to be the perfect tonic for his team.

That, as much as anything, is how you should judge Scott’s three-year body of work. He has Eddie Jordan to compute Xs and Os for him, Rod Thorn to assemble players for him, Lou Lamoriello to glare at him when his tongue gets the better of him. What Scott does best is take the temperature of his team, talk with his players, work with them, ask them to play hard for him, ask them to win for him.

You think that’s easy? Ask Art Howe how easy it is. Ask Glen Sather. Ask Jim Fassel, during those pockets of a football season when it seems he and his players are all in different books, let alone on different pages.

“He always seems to know,” Richard Jefferson said of Scott, “exactly what button to push.”

The good ones always do.

Follow the leaders

Mike Vaccaro’s list of the best New York-area coaches and managers:

1. Joe Torre, Yankees: Four World Series titles, six AL East titles, a 114-win season … working for George Steinbrenner. Anything else?

2. Byron Scott, Nets: Before him, the Nets won exactly one playoff series in their 25-year NBA history. By tomorrow, they may win their fifth in the last 13 months.